One Thousand and One
by leggomystego
Summary: Scheherezade's story, from the beginning.
1. Chapter 1

"O, my sister," says Dina from her seat on the floor before me. She leans back against the sleeping couch, between my knees, while I work my fingers through the snarls in her damp hair. I love this time of the day, when it feels almost like home again, until Dina reminds me of the nightly task.

"Finish for us, please, that wondrous tale you began last night!"

Dina is looking straight ahead at the doors to the chamber, so I can't see her face. But I can picture the fixed smile and the bright eyes - as always, she is terrified. _Maybe tonight_, she thinks. Me too.

I try to keep my voice steady and low when I reply, "With joy, dear sister, if our Sultan permits me."

And then there is the awful waiting. I at least have the smoothing and braiding of Dina's hair to occupy me, but my poor sister has nothing. I hear her nails picking nervously at the grout of the tiled floor and I give her hair a warning tug. We wait.

And finally: "Tell your tale."

It is a growl, but nonetheless, he is still interested. Dina sighs, and turns it quickly into a laugh. With my back to the Sultan, my own face is grim. Dina has been worrying about the Sultan's patience, but I worry about my own.

_Maybe tonight_, I think. Maybe tonight will be the night I tell my tale, the tale of how I came to be Sultana.

* * *

I was ten years old when my father came home, grey and grim and trembling as I had never before seen him. I ran to meet him at the gate as he arrived, just as I had every day since I could walk, and he put out his arms to stop me. I felt him lean, for the briefest moment, with his hands on my shoulders, as if he were steadying himself, but he would say nothing to me. My mother sent Dina and I to eat dinner in the kitchen downstairs, under the eyes of our servants. Dina served as a wonderful distraction (one of her finer qualities as a seven-year-old brat of a sister) and kept those watchful eyes off of me long enough that I could position myself by the ventilation grate and make a fine show of enjoying my meal while I eavesdropped on my parents talking upstairs.

I was ten years old when my father killed the Sultana.

Our wonderful, most beloved Sultan descended into madness while I was still young enough to wear my hair loose around my naked arms and run barefoot from the marketplace to the riverbank without drawing the disfavoring looks of the elders. To the rest of the children, my friends who gathered around me in the shade of the wide-leaf trees to hear the stories I had to tell, the Sultan's new pastime was nothing more than a gruesome tale they would clumsily retell as they groped for sleep. The Sultan was a faceless creature who took the shape of whatever they pleased, and even the palace, which loomed over their homes and stole each sunrise to gild its edges, was only as real as a cleverly arranged cloud formation. But for the daughter of the Grand Vizier, King Schahriar hung like an ominous shadow over our home, stealing each moment of sunlight.

My poor father barely slept for one year, and no food would pass his lips without great effort on the parts of my mother and our servants. His face grew sunken, the skin took on the dull color of ash. I once believed his hair and beard were the endless, bottomless black of the darkest night, but they became like snow scattered across the bleakness of his face. His eyes changed, as well, but they were not drained of color like the rest of him. From his pale and hollowed face, his eyes shone brightly, eerily.

"He has the look of one who has seen too much," said the peasant woman who sold spice and tobacco in the market. My mother and her friends had often said this woman was a soothsayer. I went to her one morning while my mother thought I was with my friend in the gardens. Inside of my tight fist, one of my mother's jeweled rings pressed its shape into my palm. This was the first time I had ever stolen anything, and the first time I had lied to my mother. The fortune teller took one look at me and knew.

She spat a stream of red tobacco juice between her teeth as I approached. I had seen, in passing, her gruesome grin: her pink teeth awash in the blood-colored juice. I told Dina grisly tales of _rakshasa_, people who became possessed and devoured their own families and neighbors. Every time we walked pass the soothsayer's stall, Dina grabbed at me and squeezed tightly until we were well out of reach. As the fortune teller looked at me that morning, her dark lips closed over her stained teeth in a hard line, and shook her head at my offered payment, I was sure she knew of my stories, as well.

She tucked the ring into the belt of my dress and sent me on a quest across the river. I waded through ankle-deep mire, searching for purple three-petaled blossoms that nestled in thorns and wound up rough-barked trees. When I returned, tired and triumphant and spotted red from the pricking of many thorns, she smoothed the tangled hair from my brow, and looked into my eyes. Then she led me, wordlessly, into the space of her market stall.

We sat on mats on the ground and she dabbed the red spots with something fragrant and soothing. The purple blossoms she crushed in one large, calloused hand, and she sprinkled their broken remains into a small pot hanging over a small fire. Their smell was sharp and fresh. I watched the petals rolling, rising, waving in the boiling water as the soothsayer dotted me with salve, as she added spice to the tea, as she stoked the fire. I waited, laying on the mat and feeling the heat from the fire warm my face, drinking in the scent of the blossoms and the spices and the sweet tobacco in the stall.

"He has seen horrors with his eyes wide open, but he cannot close them for fear of seeing them over again."

The soothsayer's words called me out of the doze I had slipped into. I clambered onto my elbows, blinking away the tiredness to listen attentively.

"He can remember each Sultana's face as if it were the face of his own daughter. Their pleas lurk in his ears, whispering like the wind into waking nightmares."

Trembling and wide awake now, I asked the soothsayer to tell me my fortune. She threw a pinch of spice into the lamp's flame and the air burned hot and sweet, making my eyes water.

"You will give your life to save his." Her words blew the fragrant smoke into my face, but she would say nothing more once it cleared. She sent me away with strong, sweet tea warm in my stomach and a peasant's blessing on my brow.

The peasant's blessing did not protect me from the beating my mother had waiting for me when I arrived home, late for lunch and mysteriously dirty. Dina watched from the doorway with the guilty smile of mixed pity and pleasure that she always wore when I was punished. Once released, I brushed past her wordlessly and went to wait for my father at the front door.

While I waited, I thought about what the soothsayer had said of my father. I pictured his ashen, sunken face and its ever-staring eyes, and imagined the parade of despair that looped through his mind, never leaving him, never giving him a moment's respite. He never spoke of his duties as Grand Vizier. He never actually said that it was his job to dispose of each Sultana, but I wondered. Guiltily, I had pictured my father with tearful concubines kneeling beside him, cowering at the sight of the drawn scimitar. In my mind, I could never bring my father to swing the sword; it was not really about the beheadings that I wondered. I wondered about the Sultanas themselves, at least until the Sultan had depleted his harem.

Once the concubines were gone, the Sultan began choosing his wives from the eligible young women of his kingdom. Holes were beginning to appear in the familiar fabric of my world. The eldest daughters of my parents' friends – older girls Dina and I had called cousins and admired as the pillars of young womanhood in our eyes – had taken to vanishing. Aperna, who instructed us in our dancing lessons twice each week, was the eldest of these cousins.

Dina and I, and almost all of the girls in our class, dreamed of growing to be like Aperna. We longed for her shiny, straight hair, her smooth skin, and her ability to smile with all the charm and politeness expected of a lady of her standing while her eyes sparkled, coy and devilish. She had two laughs: a demure titter for propriety's sake and a loud, raucous cackle that rivaled any of the crones hanging about the marketplace. We loved her as if we had imagined her up ourselves.

One afternoon, we arrived for dance class early, knowing that Aperna would be there and willing to entertain our annoying questions and childish games. We came in chattering, unrolling our mats and taking off our shoes and outermost garments, following our preparation routine. Aperna should have been humming from the front of the room, and she should have paused to greet us and cackled when we howled back discordantly. Instead, our prattle petered out on its own and we turned with puzzled looks to find our instructor in etiquette seated at the front of the room. The older woman's face was tight and drawn.

A few of the girls began to cry.

We were made to dance. To grieve Aperna's wedding would have been an insult to our wonderful Sultan. My legs felt as if they were made of lead, and moving my arms was like trying to push down the walls of the palace. Around me, the sobs of my classmates cut the rhythm of the music, and we moved lethargically to the strange, pulsing melody.

That night, for the first time, I did not know how to look into my father's eyes.

The next cousin to go was our sitar-instructor. Then the daughters of our neighbors were gone, one by one. There used to be two twins whose faces we only saw at parties; otherwise, we knew them from the double-wide litter borne by ten slaves that traveled to and from the baths all day, every day. We knew they were gone when the litter could no longer be seen beside the baths. Sometimes, girls would disappear overnight before they were called to the palace at all. Their mothers explained mysterious illnesses, but we were still young enough to appear as furniture to our servants and we listened to their gossip about hiding and escape with small satisfaction. One way or another, the spaces our cousins once occupied were left vacant, home only to the passing figures of their parents wrapped in white mourning clothes. They wafted through our lives like the ghosts of the slaughtered Sultanas.

After Aperna became Sultana, curiosity was difficult to muster. When I wondered if the Sultanas were dressed for their weddings, or if there were a feast, or how the Sultan spoke to them, I could no longer picture one of the painted, pretty faces of the concubines Dina and I had spied on one of our visits to the palace. I recalled them lounging in the harem garden, doted on by the eunuchs, and pictured my father escorting the chosen concubine from the garden, her carefully drawn eyes vacant and undisturbed. But now, it was always Aperna who appeared beside my father in my thoughts. Her face was tight and pale, her eyes wide. I could see her teeth clenching behind her thin, closed lips.

I sat waiting for my father until the sun was fully set. Moonlight washed the night in eerie brightness. The horse-drawn carriage that transported all of the Sultan's prized servants rolled up to the illuminated gates, flanked by gentle clouds of pale dust. As he rose from his seat, the breeze filled his black cloak and it swelled and he wavered, looking like a shadow detaching itself from a dark place. He passed through the gate on invisible feet, bobbing through the air toward me. I came to meet him, to draw his arm around my shoulder and serve as his crutch. We entered the house as quietly as shadows, as quietly as night air.

He had killed 200 Sultanas.

"Oh, Scheherazade," he sighed, wearily settling on a small couch in the front room. He would no longer spend his nights in the bedroom with my mother, unwilling to keep her awake with his restlessness. "If only I could sleep."

I sat beside him on the couch – he was so wasted and thin that there was room enough for two of me to lie next to him. He stared up at the ceiling and his wide fish's eyes caught the moonlight that hovered at the edge of the dim room. In the dark, I trembled and tried to contain the tirade burning hotly within me.

For 200 nights, I had clenched my teeth to keep treasonous words from my father's ever-loyal ears. As the daughter of the Grand Vizier, to even think ill of our wonderful and most beloved Sultan was out of the question. My father never allowed my passionate diatribes voice, no matter how haggard he became as Sultana after Sultana was enthroned and beheaded. My words were left to seethe in my stomach, claw at my throat.

I could not ask my questions; I could not denounce my Sultan. I could only hold my father's skeletal, slightly trembling hand and feel the burn of impotence, unable to soothe my father's suffering. He murmured to himself, restless and incoherent, and I made the same soothing sounds he crooned over me and Dina when we were sleepless with illness. I ran my hand over his papery forehead and felt his words form in my mouth.

I was just getting to the good part of the Tale of the Bull and the Ass when my father's eyes finally drooped and, after a half-hearted attempt at fluttering back open, held closed. I lay beside him on the couch, listening to the unfamiliar sounds of his sleeping breaths, and watched the shadows on the ceiling in their slow dance.

When I awoke, I was in my own bed and my father was gone, driven out like the rest of the shadows by the bright morning light. When my mother came into the room to rouse me, she was almost smiling.

* * *

"...and yet, O King! This story is not yet at its most wondrous, for only a moment later - "

"But, see, O sister, the light of dawn already gilds the sky," Dina cries, interrupting my lead into the next story. She flies into a sitting position, pointing dramatically to the windows, and I think, not for the first time, that the performer in Dina might enjoy this whole charade, just a bit.

My sister and I turn our eyes to the Sultan, and we wait. As always, he looks skeptical, and I know he must be weighing the pros and cons of keeping us alive for one more night. In his head, he must replay the night's tale, trying to decide if he is curious enough to hear it continued. He glances over each of us, factoring us into the equation, as well. Lastly, he looks to the windows, which are filled with the greying sky of early morning. Again, we have been up all night. He must be tired. As he casts his eyes over Dina, she fakes a polite yawn and lowers her eyes in mock-embarrassment, looking coy and alluring despite the terror we both feel.

Finally, the Sultan nods and gestures for me to join him in his bed. Dina shuts the curtains and lies down on the floor mat beside us. "Good night, my King, my Queen," she says in the darkness. I dangle my arm over the edge of the bed. My hand finds Dina's and we hold tight.


	2. Chapter 2

In the late afternoon, servants come to rouse us. The Sultan leaves to bathe and dress for whatever meetings await him; in the remaining hours of daylight, he will concern himself with the matters of his kingdom and leave Dina and I to contemplate our possible demise. The palace is open to us completely, though we are always followed by armed eunuchs when we leave the Sultan's suite. This luxury came as a surprise after one month of survival, and Dina and I have little doubt that our father was behind the arrangements. Contact with our father is forbidden, so we cherish this gift he could give us and spend much of the daylight in the Royal Gardens or the fountains of the empty harem, singing and bathing and looking for all observers like a lazing Sultana and her sister.

As the sun sets, we saunter back to the suite to await the Sultan. Servants are confused by us, having grown accustomed to ignoring the Sultanas that were marched quickly through marriage: we have been here too long. Guards begin to nod at our passing, then catch themselves and force their gazes over our heads. Servants cast shrewd glances from the corners of their eyes, as if trying to judge how much longer we will last. Part of me wants to ask for their estimates.

Only behind the doors of the suite, with the setting sun counting down to the Sultan's return, can Dina and I speak plainly, speak of our situation here in this palace, where we have made ourselves well-kept prisoners. More often than not, however, we find nothing to say.

Tonight is the tale of the dancing girl. Dina wordlessly tunes her sitar. I stand at the window, looking out at the kingdom below. I can see our house from here. I think of our mother, looking at the palace from the window of our deserted house, watching, as I watch, the light slip away like sand through an hourglass. He will be here soon, and we will all be one more story closer to the end. Strangely, it has begun to feel routine.

* * *

Before the end of the first year of the Sultan's new madness, life took on a surreal normalcy. The Sultan continued to eliminate the young and potentially treacherous women of the kingdom, and my father continued to carry out his orders, and the palace continued to swallow the land with its looming, stretching shadow. Somehow, even as nothing had changed, our lives began a slow slide back to the way they had been. One morning, as I practiced the sitar for my mother, plucking out the rudimentary melody our new teacher insisted upon, I was surprised to find the dull tune growing fuller and even somewhat pretty as I twanged half-heartedly. After a moment of wonder, both the music and I halted abruptly, and my mother and I exchanged looks of shock. She had been singing.

Despite the embarrassment that brought pink into my mother's cheeks, the shame that we knew we should feel for the audacity we had to behave even a little normally, it was happening anyway. Every now and then we would stop and look around, as if caught in the middle of a song we hadn't known we were singing, and it was like waking up from a dream and wondering if we were still asleep. Time, life, the world, kept moving, and it pulled us along.

As the guilt of readjusting began to fade, my father announced his decision to further my education. I had received instruction with the other girls of our caste since I was of age for school. Together we learned the arts of music, dance, and entertaining, along with studies in religion and the history, poetry, and literature of our great kingdom. From the start, I had thrown myself into my studies and found them underwhelming. Hungrily, I pored over the volumes in my father's study. I devoured every text I could comprehend, and even those above my humble skills I consumed like the camel waters greatly at the oasis. Philosophy, medicine, the histories and religions of the barbaric, foreign lands fascinated me, as did the many tomes of folklore and fairy tales on the study shelves. In them, I read the stories my father had told Dina and I as young girls: tales of powerful Djinnis outsmarted by clever peasants, the stories of the five ladies of Baghdad, fables with talking animals, fortunate simpletons, and evil aristocrats. There were also stories I had never heard from my father, and I studied these well, reciting them to Dina when she had not been as beastly as usual. She would pull her sleeping couch closer to mine as I put on the deep, soft voice my father had used to tell us stories. She hung on my every word to the very edge of sleep, mumbling drowsy protests if I tried to stop a long tale before we had reached the end.

"Don't worry," I would whisper soothingly. "I remember every word."

These days, my father was my audience instead of Dina. Since the 200th night, my father and I had developed a routine. The couch in the front room had become our storytelling couch, where he would rest to hear my tales before retiring to the bedroom he and my mother were again sharing. At first, I had told my father the same stories he had once used to put me and Dina to sleep. But as I ran through the familiar tales, the fables and folklore I had encountered in my father's study resurfaced in my mind, nagging for a voice to bring them to life. When my father asked where I had learned these new stories, he was surprised to discover how exactly I could recall the texts in his study.

One week later, he declared to my family that I would be sent to the boys' school. He had arrived home in the highest spirits we had seen in a year, which we believed the result of a somewhat regular sleeping pattern. Cheerfully, from his seat at the dining table, he made his announcement. "I believe Scheherazade shall attend Arasalan for her studies next term," he said, and leaned across the table to select the best piece of flat bread.

The boys of the kingdom, eduacted at the Arasalan school, did not have the girls' expertise in dance and tea-service, as their instruction was largely dominated by the study of philosophy, world cultures, writing, foreign and ancient languages, and the liberal arts. I could hardly contain my delight at the course load, despite my mother's outrage and my sister's jealousy. While my mother ranted about my father's reckless endangerment of my femininity, and Dina whined about wanting to leave the girls' school, I sat as still as I could in my seat, shaking with excitement.

"Scheherazade!" My mother's sharp voice rent my reverie. "Take Dinarzade to the garden!"

She did not even wait for us to leave the house before she began shouting at my father, and I wondered if maybe she was herself excited to be arguing again. It had been so long since my father had spoken enough to cause a quarrel.

Dina's stony silence combined with my excitement made for a poor night's sleep, but I did not feel any tiredness when I sprang out of bed. Dina was still sprawled across her couch, one leg dangling off the edge, wheezing in her sleep. Through the window behind her, I could see the sky just blushing with dawn, the world still waking up. Hastily, I threw a dressing gown across my shoulders, stumbling on the hem as I rushed to learn of my parents' decision.

I slowed my frantic steps as I neared my father's study. It was still early enough that I had encountered no one on my journey through the house, and I crept smoothly along the deserted hallway. I paused in the doorway of the study, peered around the frame, and saw my father, dressed for the day, bent over a book on his desk. I let out a quiet false cough.

My father looked up, regarded me lurking in the door, and nodded. "Ah, you're awake. Come in," he said, and try as I might to discern some hint of emotion in his voice, his tone revealed nothing. I entered the study casually, trying to conceal my anxiety.

From the high-backed chair at his desk, he informed me that we were waiting for tea. I bit back an exasperated sigh and nodded politely, just catching the smirk on my father's face as he glanced down at his book again.

After an agonizingly long moment, my father sat back in his chair and looked at me. He looked pleased, and I felt hope leap up in my chest, rattling my rib cage, but then I realized that his joy likely came from keeping me in suspense, and the hope became annoyance.

My father chuckled, as if he had seen my internal drama. "So, Scheherazade," he said, using a tone that was both cheerful and serious. Hope reapproached warily. "How did you feel about the Baghavatham?"

Impatient as I was, I could not resist a debate with my father. My friends were fine for discussing our shared lessons, and they formed a good audience for a story, but they were not well-versed in the subjects I had discovered in my father's study. He was the only one I knew who had the same knowledge and was willing to discuss these ideas with me. I delighted at any chance to talk about philosophy, or poetry, or religion, without being met by blank stares and my mother's irritating "That's nice, sweet, now go practice your sitar." I sat straighter in my chair, adopting the cool, controlled expression my father always wore to our debates, and cleared my throat.

"...I only wonder, my father, how a mind so wise and open as your own could believe so rigidly that the beliefs of an entire people are simply incorrect, when the writings of every great philosopher suggest - "

Smiling, my father held up his hand to pause me. "Do not assume that I am conceding to your point. But we must put this debate on hold, for our guest has arrived."

Puzzled, I rose as my father did and turned to face the door of the study. Shadhani, Dina's nursemaid, was just visible at the edge of the doorway, most of which was taken up by the guest. He was nearly as tall as my father, and much wider, with a protruding belly made all the more magnificently rotund by the rich, shiny fabric of his _kooshak_. The gleaming sash was light blue, running like a river around his expansive waist. The dark blue of his tunic and _sherwal_ pants, with the purple tint of a stormy night sky, made the _kooshak_ brilliant by contrast.

My father greeted the enormous man with fondness and respect, calling him "bratar" and gesturing him into the study. He swelled past Shadhani like a wave, flowing into my father's embrace. They kissed each other's cheeks and patted one another's arms soundly, asking about health and families. A year ago, this man might have asked my father about things at the palace, but now the subject was carefully avoided. I had noticed the absence of these inquiries as my parents had resumed entertaining their friends; as they ran through the small talk – everyone's children asked after, the weather commented on, gossip shared – there came an almost imperceptible pause where my father's work would have been mentioned. It was glossed over nicely, as all the women of my parents' class were well-trained in the art of conversation and could expertly resuscitate a stalled gathering, but one could catch the slight hitch.

This big man seemed even more practiced than most, and cut out the topic completely by fixating on news of my sister and myself. "This bright young lady must be your Scheherazade," he said to my father, while looking at me. We had remained standing, and the man's resonant voice rang bell-like down to me.

For a moment, I stood, dumbstruck at the foot of this mountainous man, until Shadhani prodded my ankle from behind. Knocked out of my daze, I fell into the deep, formal curtsey I had mastered last term at the girl's school. The big man nodded, as did my father, and they both took seats. I stepped forward, intending to serve tea for my father and his guest, but Shadhani moved swiftly past me, guiding me back to my seat with one hand as she strode to the tea tray. I sat dumbly as Shadhani served tea, barely listening to my father and the large man marvel at how much time had passed since they last saw one another. Shadhani pressed a cup of tea into my hand and her eyes held mine. There was a hint of a smile around the corners of her eyes, but they looked serious as well, and she pressed her gaze into me. "Do not be shy, Little Lioness," she whispered, squeezing my hands gently. Then she turned, curtseyed, and went to kneel by the door, once again a servant in waiting.

My father chose my name. The story of why he chose this name changed depending on certain factors: whether I had asked him or Dina had asked him, whether I was in his favor or in trouble with him, or whether the situation at hand called for action or patience. Shadhani's whisper urged action. I sipped my tea and sat very straight in my chair, ready to spring.

After a few more pleasantries, my father turned to me, smiling coolly despite the excitement dancing in his eyes. He dove back into our debate of the religions and I swallowed my timidity to keep up. The conversation volleyed between us like the tossing of a ball, and we moved from religion to cultural practices to ethics to folklore with what my mother called our "maddening method." Shadhani was a silent servant, and the big man, who I now knew to call Ebi Orang, weighed in only a few times with his opinions or observations. Otherwise, he remained an observer. I could not quite understand why Ebi Orang would need or want to play audience for one of our conversations, but something about Shadhani's and my father's behavior impressed upon me the importance of the big man's presence. My mouth overflowed with my most formal diction, and I employed without a hitch the smooth, eloquent delivery my Conversation Instructor had so furiously hammered into me last term. I found myself reaching to the far recesses of my memory, dusting off obscure facts that even my father had forgotten he knew. I landed crushing blows to my father's arguments, all along maintaining ladylike volume and the mysterious smile I had struggled to master in Entertaining.

Well after the tea had been finished, my father sat back in his chair, his hands raised in surrender. "Bratar," he said to Ebi Orang. "I know when I am defeated, ah?"

Ebi Orang smiled and nodded. "The victory here is clear, my friend."

And though they were addressing one another, both men looked steadily at me.

Shadhani escorted me out of the study after I took my leave of the men. She balanced the tea tray in one expert hand, so deftly that she was able to seize me by the ear with her free hand and drag me off when I made to hide beside the door and listen in on the proceedings. The tray barely shivered as I stumbled along beside her.

"Ow," I whispered; and then "aaaahhhoooowwww" I wailed, when Shadhani had "escorted" me around a corner. I wrenched myself away (meaning she released me) and held my fiery ear, scowling. Shadhani grinned.

Shadhani had come to serve our family when my mother was carrying Dina. She was an orphan, eleven years old to my four, and she was put in charge of Dina and me in return for finding a home with us. She had never been Dina's proper nursemaid, and she cared for me as much as Dina; I had grown so used to her soothing voice and her all-seeing eyes that she had always seemed more of an older sister than a servant. My father thought the relationship very good for me, insisting that Shadhani could teach me a lesson about how I ought to treat Dina. I disagreed; I only wished I could twist Dina's ear like Shadhani had mangled mine.

"Sha-a-a-di," I implored, trying not to whine. From the widening of her smile, I saw that I had been whining, and she delighted in it.

"What, Schez?" she asked, putting on her most innocent voice and widening her eyes.

I deepened my scowl, getting a laugh from Shadhani. "Alright, alright! Go, dress for breakfast while I bring in some more tea." She raised her eyebrows meaningfully at the last part and I felt my face crack into a broad smile. I gallopped away cheerily, my ravaged ear forgotten.

Breakfast, however, was a largely silent affair. Dina was still jealous and refusing to speak or eat, which was made clear by her dramatic announcement of both strikes. The speaking strike already being broken, however, she went ahead and heaped food onto her plate. My father was serenely quiet, gazing around the table contentedly, eating in a relaxed, dainty sort of manner. Across the table from him, my mother fumed. We rarely saw her so angry. Her lovely, fair face was dark with rage, her brow furrowed like a clouded sky. She ate with short, violent bites, chopping her food viciously, and she had the serving-girl cowering in the kitchen after a sideways glance.

Out of respect for Dina's and my mother's ire, I did my best to keep my expression neutral and my appetite polite. Inwardly, I was dancing and shrieking with joy. Only one thing could have my father so pleased while my mother brewed a storm: I was going to the boys' school. I twirled a berry between my fingertips, picturing myself at Asaralan. I saw myself surrounded by boys who looked up at me with rapt attention. On a raised dais, I faced a man who resembled Ebi Orang, whose face showed a harmonious blend of defeat, anguish, and admiration. I held my head high with triumph as I gazed out over the assembled students, and as I turned back to the man on the dais with me, we bowed deeply toward one another, together, in the men's fashion.

"Scheherazade!" My mother's voice was sharp and familiar. Without waiting for further instruction, I rose dreamily and escorted a sullen Dina to the garden. Dina's mood, my mother's irritation; they hardly mattered. I was going. I was gone.

* * *

"...but, my King, as you in your infinite wisdom well know, the time at which life seems perfect and promising often prove to be the most treacherous moments - "

The Sultan cuts me off with the gesture of his hand. "For what purpose has your sister risen?"

Both the Sultan and I look up at Dina, who stands beside the sleeping couch, turned over her shoulder and paused in mid-step.

"I beg your pardons, o my King. I merely observed Dawn's footsteps approaching the window and thought to prepare..." Expertly, she trails off with her most innocent, round-eyed face, both vulnerable and desirable.

"Prepare..." the Sultan rumbles, considering.

The moment stretches, drags.

"Prepare to rest. We shall finish this tale in the evening." He stops, but he is not finished. He continues to gaze at Dina. My heart beats slow, while I know Dina's races.

"Come," he says, at last, gesturing at the sleeping couch. Wordlessly, I stand and prepare to lay down on Dina's usual sleeping roll. While the Sultan's back is turned for a moment, Dina grasps my arm in her hand, her fingernails digging in sharply. I squeeze her own arm, and our eyes are fiercely locked. My pulse presses once against her arm; hers three times against mine. Then we break away, and the lamps are put out, and the darkness before dawn swallows us, pulling us apart. I hear Dina take her place beside the Sultan as I lay down and then I watch the room become lighter with the sunrise, trying not to hear anything else, stroking the fingernail marks Dina left in my arm. I know she is doing the same, reminding herself that I am here, that she is not alone. I fit my own fingernails into the marks and press down, trying to cry quietly so that the Sultan will not notice.

* * *

AN: Sorry for the long delay! I've just been trying to find time to write this. I'm planning to get another update in between now and February. Reviews will help that happen! Also, any interested beta readers? Send me a message! Thanks to everyone who reviewed chapter one. I hope I haven't disappointed you too much. xosteg


	3. Chapter 3

"…but when she awoke, the handsome man beside her had become a common Ass!"

Dina's laugh rings out, filling the Sultan's chamber, bringing a smile to my own face. Stretched across the sleeping couch with my feet resting in her lap, I gaze at her mirthful face, idly trying to detect the seams of the ruse. As usual, it's flawless.

Dina quiets rather suddenly, and we both become aware of the deep, rumbling chuckle that has joined her laughter. The stoic Sultan is smiling, his shoulders shaking with amusement. Concealing our alarm, Dina and I titter like proper ladies and drop our eyes down. My hands come to rest where my stomach has begun to swell, and I pet the bulge for an absent moment before raising my eyes to Dina. Her hands hold my bloated feet, and her gaze – raw, tremulous, pained – awaits mine. It is but a moment; then, the cheery mask slides back into place and she busies herself with my foot massage.

"Sister, that tale of the Lady and the Ass puts in mind the story of the Husband and the Parrot. If it pleases our Lord and Sultan, might you entertain us with that humorous fable?"

Dina's eyes remain on my feet, so I lower my gaze to where my hands are clasped over my belly. We wait, and I stroke the drum of my stomach, thinking that this whole operation is nothing like what I had expected.

* * *

Asaralan was not quite what I had imagined. My dreams of being admired, awed, and respected were put quickly to rest when Shadhani woke me the morning of my first day. Squinting through the veil of my dreams into a flickering oil lamp, I whimpered in protest of Shadhani's smiling face and prodding hand. Gently but insistently, she pulled me up off my sleeping couch. I cast an envious glance at Dina, still peacefully sleeping, before Shadhani dragged me off to be washed and dressed. The window of the bedroom was a square of bottomless, velvety black.

My daydreams had featured me clothed in silk garments, wreathed in gauzy veils, sparkling like a precious jewel. Instead, Shadhani helped me into a long, shapeless tunic of dark grey and, to my amazement, matching sherwal trousers. These were not the pants market wives, and even my mother, wore beneath their dresses on casual days; these were pants made for men, pants never meant to be knotted indecently at my waist. I opened my mouth to protest, or maybe just to express my shock. Surely, my father could not know about this. But Shadhani knocked the words from my lips as she began swaddling my head in a long grey scarf. When she had finished, she stooped down and gazed at me, holding my shoulders firmly. "It will be alright, Little Lioness."

Then, I was walking numbly to the waiting carriage, grey as the early morning. As I climbed up to sit beside my father, who would drop me off on his way to the palace, I tried not to think of the brightly painted faces of the women in the alleys of the market, women who wore sherwal trousers.

"Are you ready?" my father asked me as the carriage pulled up to the gates of Asaralan. The morning was pale yellow, and it set the vast white building glowing. I stared numbly at the yawning entrance before us, dimly aware of the many boys in grey turning from their conversations and games on the grounds of the building. I barely registered the scowling faces beneath the grey turbans, all focused on our carriage, on me.

"Scheherazade."

My legs were leaden, anchoring me to the carriage seat.

"I'm ready," I lied, and pushed my heavy feet to the ground.

Ebi Orang appeared by my side with a stealth I had not expected of someone his size. His rich voice flowed down to me as he led me through the yard, through the hard eyes of those uniformed boys, but I hardly recognized the welcoming words he offered.

At the top of the front steps, I dimly registered Ebi Orang gesturing to a tall figure in grey. I turned to look up at a slender young man standing in the entrance of the building. He wore the same grey uniform as myself and the other boys, but a shiny purple kooshak around his middle distinguished him. His face was long, hollow about the cheeks, and he gazed down at me with large, amber eyes that lacked the cold venom I had felt from the boys in the yard, but there wasn't kindness, either. It was something like pity, I thought, but more distant than that. Ebi Orang's voice tolled again, tearing me from the man's copper gaze.

"This is Aimad. He will be your chaperone here. You are not to travel within this building unaccompanied by him. He will show you the campus now, before morning session."

Aimad bowed to Ebi Orang, who nodded in return. I dropped into a deep curtsy, but when I raised my head, both Aimad and Ebi Orang were staring at me strangely. After a pause, Ebi Orang cleared his throat. "Aimad will also help you practice your formalities." Then he nodded at both of us and moved swiftly back to the yard.

I looked up at Aimad, puzzled, and found him staring at me with that same cool pity. "Come on," he said, shortly, and took off down the hallway.

I trotted alongside him, my many questions blocking my throat. Were all students at Asaralan escorted everywhere? Why did my formalities need practice? Why was I not left outside with the other students?

Aimad spoke again. "The school has had to make allowances for you to attend Asaralan. You're expected to behave like the other students, hence your uniform and your formalities – no curtsies here. But, for your safety, I'm your nursemaid."

Anger surfaced in his voice and his pace picked up, so that I was nearly jogging to keep up. "Not that it was ever my aspiration to play nursemaid to a spoiled daughter of the Grand Vizier."

He stopped suddenly, too quickly for me, and momentum carried me a few strides before I turned back to face him. Where his expression had been cool before, it was now aflame. His golden eyes seared into mine. "And before you think to be offended by my tone, Your Ladyship, rest assured that my words will be among the kindest you hear today." He let his speech burn up the air between us, and then he whirled away, turning down a hallway, not waiting for me to catch up.

Unfortunately, Aimad was right. He did not speak to me for the rest of the day, though he was at the door of every classroom to escort me, in stony silence, to my next lesson. The other students were no more pleased with my presence, and they were quick to let me know this. At the beginning of my first lesson, while I squirmed under the angry glares of thirty boys, a doe-eyed student leaned close to me. His fair face was twisted with disgust and, inwardly, I felt a jolt of shock at the purity of the hatred on this strange boy's face. Still, I maintained a detached demeanor. My initial shock had begun to wear off after Aimad's speech, and I felt more prepared, more controlled.

Even so, it shook me when the boy's low voice drawled: "You know, if you were my sister, I would kill you for coming here."

It was the same throughout the day. Some boys spoke in heated voices, spitting threats from twisted lips like foul tastes. Others slipped cold words into my ear, leaning closer than propriety allowed to cut me to ribbons. These quick deliveries at the beginnings and ends of lessons were intense. I was told in detail how I should be beaten, disfigured, and mutilated. I was less than human, no better than a dog (much worse, to some). To my horror, one boy looked me over and told me, with a sneer, that with my uniform, I belonged in the alleys of the marketplace. Shame clenched a tight fist around my lungs, but I did not allow myself to even flinch. I remembered my lessons from the girl's school, and maintained a lady's composure. Matar Nouri would have marveled at my rigid posture, my serene face.

If Aimad was impressed, he said nothing. We walked in shared silence throughout the day, firmly wrapped in our own concerns. He scarcely glanced at me, ignoring me as masterfully as I breezed past the glares of my fellow students, until Ebi Orang approached us at the end of the school day.

"How did you find your first day?" the great man asked pleasantly. He was smiling, but I knew better than to try to reciprocate. I arranged my face into its politest expression.

"Enlightening," I answered carefully, and truthfully. "Beyond any expectation."

So quietly that only I could perceive it, Aimad snorted. Ebi Orang, however, was beaming.

"Wonderful, wonderful! Your noble father has arranged for a carriage to collect you in a short time-"

Here, I panicked. The thought of waiting in these halls filled with silent, seething hatred, or the yard of a thousand poisonous eyes, made my heart pound a frantic rhythm. The words and faces of the boys came rushing back to me, towering over me like a wave about to crash down and swallow me.

"No," I said, quickly. Aimad turned to look at me. Maybe his cold eyes held a glimmer of curiosity, but I did not stop to inspect them. More smoothly, I explained to Ebi Orang that I would prefer to walk the short distance to my home and reflect on my lessons.

"Very well," he replied, smiling the same as ever. "But you will have an escort, of course."

Beside me, Aimad stiffened and agreed. Inwardly, I winced. One disaster avoided meant another hardship would be accepted, I thought, as I bowed to Ebi Orang and followed Aimad from the building.

The house was as silent as my walk home had been. After Aimad turned sharply at the edge of the front gate, leaving me without a word or glance, I trudged inside to the cool silence that meant no one was around. My parents were both out, I knew, and Shadhani was probably fetching Dina from school. With no one to cook for or serve, the other servants would be in their quarters or running errands.

I wandered the empty house aimlessly, as if I had never been there before. I peered into doorways like maybe they would reveal new places, not the familiar rooms I had left behind this morning. Eventually, I found my way to my father's study.

The afternoon sunlight spilled over the windowsill, scattering gold and shadow across the room. My father's desk, covered in books – opened and closed, ancient and modern – was illuminated. I walked slowly to my father's chair, each step a great effort, as if I labored under a burden. The arms of the chair seemed to beckon to me, and I crawled into the seat, drawing my legs up close to me. I reached out to touch the books on my father's desk, caressing the smooth pages, tracing the ink letters. I gathered the nearest book to me and wedged it between my knees and my chest. There, surrounded by the glowing tomes of the knowledge I longed for, clutching one of these precious volumes to me, I lowered my head and wept.

The sun dipped lower in the sky. The servants came out of hiding and began to prepare dinner. Dina returned from school, her small footsteps sharp and rapid as she ran upstairs. My mother came home. Alone in the study, I poured my sorrow over a volume of Greek poetry, the book stabbing into my heart with each sob.

* * *

"…but she did not despair for long, for her husband was correct: the parrot knew every answer she desired to hear! However, no parrot can replace a husband, o my King, and so - "

"O, sister, the sun begins to rise!" Dina's interruptions have become less theatrical over the past months.

When I turn to look at the sultan, he is smiling faintly as he gazes at the window. Calmly, he meets my eyes and tips his head to the side, wordlessly releasing me from the story.

Dina and I are not our usual chattering selves as we prepare for bed. We offer silent, coy smiles, and flirtatious eyes. I have the child, the potential heir, growing within me to explain my tiredness, but we are all rather quiet. The servants close the shutters and we settle, the Sultan beside me in bed, Dina below us on her mat. The Sultan's deep breaths become soft snores in a moment, and only as I extend my hand down to hold Dina's do I realize that the Sultan did not even mention beheading us tonight.


End file.
